Product Disruption
Supporting an established traditional tourist guide in re-framing and innovating its customer proposition to develop an omnichannel offering
CLIENT
COPEC (Chilean Petrol Company)
Chiletur is a friendly and dynamic tourist service ecosystem that caters to the needs of the curious and adventurous travellers across Chile.
ROLE
UX Consultant at Grey Group (Global Advertising and Marketing Agency)
PROJECT DELIVERY
Chiletur CX Ecosystem (Including a Responsive Web, Native App, Full Commerce, Guide Books, Petrol Station Services, Partnership with Stakeholders)
PROJECT SERVICES
User and Market Research, UX Concept, UX Design and Testing, Business Intelligence, Monetization Strategies, Advertising Campaing
CASE SUMMARY
For over 60 years, the largest Chilean Petrol Company (COPEC) has published maps and tourist guides for drivers and travellers under the brand Chiletur. The Chiletur guides are an established product selling over 150,000 copies every year, yet their market was mainly constituted by Chilean car drivers, mostly families with children, with very low penetration in the age group 18 - 35 and no online presence. Customer surveys and market researches conducted by Accenture and Provokers, highlighted the large potential to develop an online offering providing more friendly and up to date information and content to travellers.
The Brief: COPEC reached out to Grey Group with a simple yet challenging request: explore and develop potential innovation strategies to transform and evolve the physical product (the tourist guide) into an engaging online-offline customer experience.
As part of a multidisciplinary and diverse team, my role and key responsibilities as the UX Consultant have been to:
(i) Empathise with the users needs while keeping strategic business goals in mind,
(ii) Conceptualise the customer experience,
(iii) Facilitate and create design solutions,
(iv) Develop and test prototypes and UI design.
233,197
Reached 233,197 downloads after a year of launch, while the printed edition sells 150,000 per year
Results achieved
72k
Retained 72k monthly active users and 34k daily active users
4.7
Achieved an evaluation of 4.7 out of 5 points in the android and IOS platforms
CHALLENGE
Innovating a traditional offline product requires to embrace new technologies and the complexity of human’s mobility
The large diffusion of online content and mobile connectivity poses a significant threat to the traditional paper tourist guides. Online content is free, accessible from practically anywhere, and frequently updated. Despite the threatening competition, Chiletur could count on higher reliability, more inspiring and well researched content (according to surveys and market research conducted by Accenture and Provokers –two multinational business consultant companies).
COPEC, the Chiletur guide owner, recognised this market opportunity and mandated Grey Group to orchestrate Chiletur’s evolution.
APPROACH
User-centered design approach utilising an iterative learning process supported by a multidisciplinary team of experts
The approach utilised by Grey’s team rested upon the use of a lean UX methodology. In order to quickly achieve Product/Market Fit, we worked closely with real users focusing on the actual experience being designed. The Lean UX approach allowed us to drive the design in short, iterative cycles to assess what works best for the business and the user.
DESIGN PROCESS OVERVIEW
Although this is an iterative process, it is presented here as a linear process to describe the outputs during its various stages.
1) Understand context of use
2) Specify user requirements
3) Design Solutions
4) Evaluate against requirement
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Quantitative research
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Qualitative research
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Customer Journey Map
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Benchmarking
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Analogous inspirations
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Target Personas
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Insight Definition
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How-might-we Questions
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Co-creative Workshops
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Prototypes
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User Flow Diagram
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UI Design
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Wireframes
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Usability Test
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Visual Mockups
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Final UX Design
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Monetization Strategy Model
1) Understand context of use
As a starting point, I analysed users' existing approaches to travel guides and Chiletur using:
Quantitative research:
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First party data with attitudinal customer insights using the Maester platform provided by the business intelligence team of Grey. Using Chiletur social media, to gather real users’ feedback, we asked people directly yet virtually for their perceptions on the naming and pricing.
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Large data sets and statistical studies that gather inputs from a customer perspective. Conducted by Provokers (a business consultancy company in Latam), the method consisted of an online survey with a sample of 635 responses.
Customer Journey Map
Qualitative research:
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Interviews with Chiletur staff and travellers to uncover needs and motivations. Field study to gain a deeper understanding of the user attitude and behaviour. Both studies conducted by Accenture.
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Benchmarking and analogous inspiration to get a fresh perspective from new context.
"Copec is a mobility company, it is no longer an energy company"
Customer Journey Map
2) Specify user requirements
Through step 1) of the process and, I was able to determine the target personas and derive actionable insights and concise recommendations for the UX Design.
Three main insights were identified during the research phase:
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Online free content (blogs, newspapers, etc) and word-of-mouth is still heavily relied upon by travelers across Chile, although Chiletur shows superior quality content.
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The main limitation of online content and online maps offering is the need for internet connection, while the benefit of having a paper guide is the ability to be able to consult it in remote areas with no 3G/4G signal.
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The detailed preparation of a trip is the most stressful and cumbersome part of the process for travellers.
In order to reframe the problem and set clear guidelines for the realisation phase, the insights were translated into a “How might we..?” (“HMW”) framework:
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How might we offer an accessible, friendly and high quality content browsing experience?
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How might we allow easy and seamless in-app offline content?
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How might we create an engaging learning experience that doesn’t feel like studying?
3) Design Solutions
To address the HMW questions and generate ideas, two creative workshops were conducted, the results were analysed and organised, and sketches and prototypes were developed to test and refine the UX design.
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A co-creative workshop runned by Accenture allowed the Copec team to generate ideas about how to address the issues and opportunities identified in the previous phases. This exercise led to many ideas, some obvious, others more ambitious, such as the use of AI to improve the search engine, or the use of gamification to increase user engagement.
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To make a user-centred yet strategic decision, the ideas were evaluated and prioritised in order to reach the product/market fit, hence the decisions taken were:
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Start implementing an omni-channel proposition with simplified initial online features, and invest in the ability to build incremental improvements over time.
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Leverage Chiletur superior quality content vs. online information sources, and provide a seamless omni-channel experience to users (printed guide plus online up-to-date and user generated content, membership rewards and geolocalization).
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Also, as part of a multidisciplinary team, I worked close to the business intelligence team developing solutions to maximize target market data collection that could support better business decision making in the future. For this purpose and for the integration of other services to the Chiletur CX ecosystem, we define that the membership rewards would be based on the participation of each user.
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The co-creative information hierarchy workshop with Grey's multidisciplinary team, helped to build a shared vision and contribute to the project in an aligned way. This work session allowed us to organise the experience based on what each target persona was trying to accomplish: (i) explore destinations and activities, (ii), plan the trip, and (iii) connect with others.
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Low-fi interface prototypes enabled me to roughly define the basic layout of the product’s UI, determining the sizing, spacing and positioning of the screen’s elements and widgets. The validation of the sketches with the software and system engineers, pointed out that some elements and widget that I propose did not make sense in the front-end, and needed to be redesigned.
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The Hi-fi interface prototype allowed us to evaluate the design against usability and feasibility requirements. Wireframes developed in Balsamiq, helped the team to pay attention to details. For example, what is the optimum number of clicks allowing a user “not to get lost”, or what should be the favourite and recommended design icon in order to not confuse the users.
4) Evaluate against requirement
To assess how each target audience interacted with the design, and to identify problems that may cause friction, unmoderated usability testings were conducted. After gathering inputs from the testing phase, mockups showing what the wireframe will look like were created. Visually branded with Chiletur brand guidelines, the final UX design was ready to be launched.
Final UX Design
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Usability testing with real/potential users, success rate and time to complete tasks were tested. Through unmoderated testing, I could identify areas where users struggle with the functionality and usability. Users also provided feedback on the need to have more profile features, like saving a favourite destination. Users’ proactive attitude inspired me to add features like the ability for them to make suggestions for the current app.
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Mockups were developed in coordination with graphic designers, who branded the wireframes, ensuring that it reflects the values and personality of its brand. Using remote A/B testing anchored on Maester platform, we runned simultaneous experiment that helped us decide the best performance design.
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Final UX design achieved the basic functionality and usability requirements as well as the business specifications. This happened, once users, the client (kept always in the loop), and the Grey’s multidisciplinary team validated the elemental design performance.
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Monetization strategy models we thought first, together with the business intelligence team, tried to gather as many users as it can by showcasing the basic features of the app. The idea was then to keep the users engaged and enticed enough so that some of them go for the premium experience of the app by paying more. The challenge was to mix this membership model without cannibalizing the original offline guide. Thereby, the final decision for the launching offered the whole digital experience for free in order to gather user information, iterate the app and sell the new version.
CHILETUR CX ECOSYSTEM
MOBILE APPLICATION
English and Spanish digital version of the guides, with added features as travel planner, membership rewards and geo-localisation
GUIDE BOOKS
With new, upgraded and ever changing content via app links and QR codes
WEBSITE
For transparent and fully integrated experience across channels
FULL COMMERCE
Including physical and digital product store, complete fulfillment and customer service
SERVICE STATIONS
Aligned with Copec’s promotional offers at the point of sale
PARTNERS
Despegar
Booking
Airbnb
Turistic
OUTCOME
A customer experience ecosystem delivering inspiring travel information and services to a growing customer base
Using a combination of business intelligence, marketing, UX design, developers and sales, we transformed the established offline tour guide from a printed model to an omni-channel service with a subscription-based business model.
Through the support of Grey Group and my contribution, Chiletur was able to (i) offer a seamless digital interaction and instant response for users, (ii) provide a fully connected customer experience linking people, places and things (iii) create new business opportunities partnering with stakeholders while becoming the smartest travel partner for users.
Today, one year after the launch, the number of Chiletur app users exceeds the sales of the printed guide. Meaning, that the volume of interest in digital (233,197 total downloads) is larger after a year of launch, compared to the printed guide (150,000 units sold) that is 60 years old.
Using 5 different analytical tools sources (MobileAction, Predictable Media, Firebase and others), the results show that the app has:
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233,197 total app downloads
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142,990 unique active users using the app 3 times a month
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It achieved an Android rating of 4.9, and an IOS rating of 4.5 (out of 5)
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49% visibility score